Croatian officials on Thursday confirmed the arrests of several ethnic Serbs in the city of Vukovar on suspicion of having committed war crimes during the 1991-95 war.
Five persons were arrested and taken in for questioning early on Thursday morning, the media reported.
Interior Minister Davor Bozinovic confirmed the arrests on Thursday, saying the investigation was underway, but added he was unfamiliar with the details.
Chief of Police had set up a task force in February to investigate the war crimes in the Vukovar area, Bozinovic said.
Vukovar was besieged by combined forces of the Yugoslav Army and Serbian paramilitaries for almost three months in late 1991. The siege had reduced the once prosperous town to rubble before it fell in November 1991. After its fall, many civilians and captured soldiers were summarily executed, including some 200 civilians and prisoners of war taken from the town hospital and killed at the Ovcara farm south of town, with many perpetrators thought to have been involved in the executions never arrested and tried, with some even living today side-by-side with survivors in the town itself or nearby areas.
“So far, the task force has filed criminal charges in three cases of war crimes, as well as for four crimes committed on the Ovcara farm,” Bozinovic said.
Meanwhile, the Independent Serb Democratic Party (SDSS) and Joint Council of Municipalities (ZVO) sent out a joint statement, saying the latest police action had caused fear in the Vukovar Serb community and cast doubts over impartiality of the necessary investigations into war crimes.
“Without wishing to question police work or obstruct an investigation into war crimes, our concern is based on the fact that the latest police action comes after a political campaign launched at national and local level, to exert pressure on the police and investigators,” they said, adding that war crimes against Serbs in Vukovar remained unprosecuted.
In October, a protest aimed at raising awareness about unsolved crimes from the 1991-95 war was held in Vukovar, initiated by town mayor Ivan Penava.
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